I'd be willing to try out ARR once it comes out, if it isn't just "here is an MMO from 2008 with 2014's graphics." And I agree, I think it does speak to the character of the developers that they've actually been trying to support their players.

To be frank, I wouldn't expect more than a 2008 MMO with 2014 graphics. It's pretty obvious that they aren't out to innovate the genre.

If they end up making a more player-friendly version of FFXI out of FFXIV, I'll be a guaranteed subscriber. There was a charm to FFXI that's hard to put into words that no other MMO has been able to duplicate, and it had a huge effect on my constant love/hate relationship with the game and my dozens of resubscriptions.

...their work on both FFXI and FFXIV still shows me they still care about their fans...

Oh man, if only you were still playing XI. Nerf bat to everything, the playerbase is pretty much a bunch of addicted battered housewives, they constantly say how dumb all their decisions are but will continue to subscribe to the game and play it.

It's really odd how poor the communication on the XI official forums are, really, given how the XIV forums are handled. The XIV forums has the director coming out to make posts quite often, and XI forums just constantly gets translated Japanese forum posts which the translator makes it sound like he's passing it off as his own word. It's pretty frustrating.